


And I Saw

by Winterling42



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:35:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27535366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: The night they spend in Hupperdook, Nott and Caleb have a conversation that's maybe more than they bargained for.
Relationships: Nott/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 9
Kudos: 43





	And I Saw

**Author's Note:**

  * For [connivingAce](https://archiveofourown.org/users/connivingAce/gifts).



Nott comes to bed later. Caleb, half asleep and still drunk, has sat up to puzzle over his bootlaces. He’s shed his coat and books with some difficulty, having shoved them to one corner of the bed rather than hang them up, and looks up as Nott slides in through the barely open door. 

The amber lights float in a slow circle around the room, casting everything in warm shadow. “Oh, sorry.” Nott shuts the door without making a sound, padding over to the bed. “I didn’t think you’d still be up.” 

“Hmm. I should not...shouldn’t sleep with boots on.” Caleb frowns down at the shoes as if they’ve done him personal wrong. “Gets mud on the bed.” 

“Caleb I don’t know if you’ve recently seen yourself,” Nott teases, shrugging out of her cloak and pulling the mask off over her head. “There’s  _ gonna _ be mud on the bed.” 

For a moment, he looks utterly offended. “No, I would not—” He rubs a hand across his cheek, then looks at the thin smear of dirt left there. “Oh.” Something in him...fills up, a sadness that was absent so briefly she almost hadn’t noticed. 

“Hey, it’s alright.” Nott hops up next to him, putting her bony hand in his. “Still a damn sight prettier than me.” 

Caleb smiles. Close his hand around hers. He leans against her, resting his head on her shoulder. Almost instinctively, her other hand comes up to comb through his hair. “I hope you know,” he says, mostly to her collarbone. “That I...that you are not ugly at all. To me.” 

Nott freezes for a moment. Two moments. Finally she disentangles her clawed hand from Caleb’s hair and pulls away, feeling a sudden wash of shame-hatred that leaves a bad taste in the back of her throat. “You’re very kind, Caleb,” she says. He leans back to look at her, still bleary-eyed. 

“No I’m not. Ask anyone. Ask—ask Beauregard, if I am kind. I am an asshole, and you mean...you are...you are very important. Nott the Brave.” 

He seems to have forgotten he’s still holding her hand. Nott gives him what, on another face, might have been a winning smile. “Little old me?” she asks, batting her eyelashes ridiculously. 

Caleb leans in and kisses her. 

It’s sudden, unexpected. Clumsy, the way he smushes his lips up against hers. She can taste cheap beer and something dusty that is wholly Caleb. Nott licks out, chasing the taste, until abruptly she remembers what she was. Who she had been. She leans away, her heart stuttering under the weight of...everything. 

The amber lights have fled to the corners of the room, and in the shadows she can see Caleb’s heart break. His eyelashes flutter closed, and his mouth twists into a terrible smile. “Es tut mir Leid,” he says, and maybe he’s slurring because of the drink. Maybe his voice breaks on the last word because he’s drunk. But Nott doesn’t think so.

She cannot bear to see him hurting, reaches out and puts a knobbly hand on his cheek. He leans into it like his cat, rubbing the soft bristles of his beard against her palm. He’s still trying to breath steadily, so she puts a hand on his other cheek too. “Caleb,” she says, pleadingly. 

“I am...so. Sorry.” 

“Don’t be!” Nott smooths his face, lets her fingertips dig into his beard  _ just  _ like petting Frumpkin. Caleb melts. “You’re so handsome, and smart, and of  _ course _ you’re a good kisser.” (That is maybe a little bit of a lie, but gods does she want to kiss him again.) “I’m just...me.” 

Caleb sighs, and reaches up to hold one of her hands in his again. The lights circle just a little bit closer so he can see her. “I wish you could believe me when I compliment you,” he says, with more of his usual dryness than before. “Still, I should not have done...that. Without asking.” 

Nott wraps her arms around his neck, fits herself against Caleb in a way that is by now so familiar. He hugs her back, of course, and she is so, so warm. Before now it’s been easy to push the past out of her way, to focus on survival. And to drink whenever she couldn’t do that. But tonight she’s only had beer, even if it was a  _ lot _ of beer, and she’s feeling terribly guilty.

_ Just tell him, _ a voice shouts in her big goblin ear.  _ He told YOU everything! How can you stand here, and not TELL HIM _ . 

But she only shifts to the side a little, lifts her head but doesn’t pull away. “It’s okay, Caleb. I think, tonight, we can maybe just sleep?”

“Ja.” Caleb continues to hold her very tightly. “Ja, das ist gut.” 

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr at [critical-ramblings](https://www.critical-ramblings.tumblr.com)!


End file.
